Alberta's United Conservative Party caucus says staff attended a meeting to discuss how to access a website that's now the focus of investigations into a massive breach of personal data. The caucus says in a statement that staff regularly attend meetings of political interest and, in this case, organizers told them the database was obtained legally. The database contained the...
Carney picks a francophone with a long legal resume to serve as the King's representative in Canada. Prime Minister Mark Carney has named former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour as Canada's next governor general. Carney is picking a francophone with a long legal resume that includes stints prosecuting war crimes in Rwanda and Yugoslavia and serving as the UN human...
Trump blamed the Reagan ad. Negotiations really fell apart over autos. Prime Minister Mark Carney left the White House in early October with Canada and the United States in reach of a trade deal. Inside the meeting, senior U.S. officials were enthusiastic about a possible agreement covering steel, aluminum, uranium and energy.
2019 report urged greater transparency from Canada's viceregal expense program. Prime Minister Mark Carney says he will look into an expense program under which former governors general billed the government more than half a million dollars last year. The program, which launched in 1979 and has been shrouded in secrecy, allows each former governor general to bill up to $206,04...
Arbour has overseen public inquiries, UN agencies and the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague. Former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour is perhaps Canada's most accomplished jurist, having served in a number of highly influential roles both at home and abroad that sometimes earned her criticism for the principled positions she took. Born to a low-income, single-parent family in Montreal...
A new Liaison Strategies survey of Quebec shows a close provincial race, with the Parti Québécois narrowly ahead of the Quebec Liberal Party among decided and leaning voters. If a provincial election were held today, the PQ would receive 32% of the decided and leaning vote, followed by the Liberals at 32%, the CAQ at 16%, the PCQ at 11%...
The Weekly Nanos Tracking is produced by the Nanos Research Corporation, headquartered in Canada, which operates in Canada and the United States. The data is based on random interviews with 1,000 Canadian consumers (recruited by RDD land- and cell-line sample), using a four-week rolling average of 250 respondents each week, 18 years of age and over. The random sample of...
When the rare and relatively unfettered opportunity arises, it might be tempting for a prime minister to use the selection of a governor general to do something splashy or exciting or unconventional, like choosing a hockey player or an astronaut. And there is nothing inherently wrong with excitement or novelty. But this is perhaps not a moment for indulging in...
REGINA -- A Saskatchewan Opposition NDP member is now sitting as an Independent.
Premier David Eby says neither the RCMP nor Canada's spy agency have ever raised concerns about his cabinet or caucus, after Vancouver's ex-mayor said a minister was being investigated for collaborating with China's government. Eby says he has "had multiple briefings with CSIS, with the RCMP" and none pointed to any concerns about any member of the government, and if...
Canada is at a crossroads. In the coming days and weeks, the federal government will decide whether the country compromises its climate commitments or embraces a more sustainable path towards a greener future.
If it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium . If you’re old enough to remember this 1969 film, where a busload of hapless tourists barrel across Europe on an 18-day tour of nine cities, you probably voted Liberal in the past election, like most of Canada’s baby boomers. And you’re probably happy with the way things are going so far. But...
In this province, there’s a significant group of extremists who don’t believe laws apply to them. The extent of this destructive, dangerous nihilism is revealed with the appalling misuse of data by a separatist-linked group that exposes detailed personal information of 2.9 million Albertans. The separatists continue to ridicule the authorities while Elections Alberta investigates the massive data flip from...
The Alberta separatism movement is caught up in yet another controversy and its credibility has been blown to bits. Last week it was revealed that an affiliated group had somehow got its hands on the complete list of registered voters — all 2.9 million of them with their names, addresses, phone numbers and electoral districts — and put them up...
Like hungry wolves, opposition MPs look to isolate and target the weakest, the most awkward or the most bumbling in the ministerial herd. The Conservatives are currently launching coordinated attacks on Lena Diab, the immigration minister. In an unsentimental social media post, the party’s immigration critic, Michelle Rempel Garner, called for the minister to be fired , after her department...
If anyone in Canada was sleepwalking toward the prospect of an Alberta independence referendum, events over the last few days should be enough to jolt anyone awake. A massive data breach of Alberta voter information, published by a pro-independence outfit called The Centurion Project, has sparked an RCMP investigation and some hurried efforts by the Alberta government to check whether...
Elections Alberta could have known more than a month ago that there was a violation of the province’s voter file, exposing the personal data of 2.9 million electors in the province to unknown numbers of bad actors. They could have known because I warned them – or, rather, I tried to. I reported an anonymous tip. I got a call...
The absence of a visible leader of the Democrats will help, not hurt Democratic Party chances in the midterms.
The Liberals' $25-billion 'sovereign wealth fund' proves Mark Carney thinks governments should allocate Canada's capital
So far, there's been a lot more talk than action, and, for a guy who campaigned on rebuilding this country so it could confront existential threats to our sovereignty, more speed would be better. I suspect even the prime minister would agree.
Breaking my rule of never quoting myself, but those lines are from a column of mine from February 2017, one month after Donald Trump’s first inauguration. Since then, American democracy has experienced the respite of four years of Joe Biden, which not so much reinstated normal working conditions in journalism and comedy as slowed the slide of both towards the...
Much has been said since March about how Avi Lewis has finally and fully landed in the family business, following in the footsteps of his father, Stephen, and his grandfather, David, who also were leaders for the New Democrats. But Lewis has always been in a family business. His mother, Michele Landsberg, wrote for this paper for more than 2...
Is this it? Is this all a galaxy brain in control of a government within sight of 50 per cent in the polls can offer in the midst of a crisis? A bit of a nip here, a bit of a tuck there, but all-in-all keeping Canada on the same rotten economic trajectory?
There were several rounds of chatter over the summer and into the fall about whether the honeymoon was over for Prime Minister Mark Carney – and if not yet, when that moment would come. Elbows sagged; President Donald Trump went on blowing up like a puffer fish; tariffs were carving up certain sectors of the economy and regions of the...
It’s alarming that Prime Minister Mark Carney, citing China as a “strategic partner,” has agreed to a secret deal on co-operating with Chinese police, given the highly controversial nature of these agreements in the past.
If one thing is clear from Prime Minister Mark Carney’s economic update this week, it’s that he’s taking progressive voters for granted. Headlines like “A Canada for All” sound nice. As do statements like: “the government is protecting the essential social programs that give Canadians a fair chance to get ahead — child care, dental care, and pharmacare.”
Last year, I supported the Conservatives in the federal election because the Liberal government of the previous 10 years had produced large net capital outflows, presided over Canada’s decline in the rankings of the most prosperous countries per capita, conducted a suicidal war on the petroleum industry, self-defamed the country for attempted genocide of First Nations, was a useless member...
Why would U.S. President Donald Trump approve a Keystone-like pipeline that could eventually transport a million barrels a day of Canadian oil to refineries in the U.S. Midwest or along the Gulf coast? Trump had four full years during his first term to reverse the suspension of Keystone imposed by his predecessor, Barack Obama. He never did. Does this mean...
July 1, 2026, is an important date for the future of the Canada-U.S. Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), but there is considerable confusion as to exactly what is supposed to happen on that date. Some think it is the final deadline for negotiations to save the agreement from termination. Others think it is the starting date for a complete renegotiation of the...
It’s been nearly a week, and we are still no closer to knowing what the Carney government means when it talks about setting up “Canada’s first sovereign wealth fund.” I don’t just mean what it would do, or how it would work, or what problem it’s intended to solve. I mean, quite literally, what is it? I suspect the government...
The economist John Maynard Keynes is reputed to have said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” Still, this is a hard piece for me to write. I devoted several years of my life to helping create the Oil Sands Pathways to Net Zero Alliance and its carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) project...
The time is coming for Prime Minister Mark Carney to overhaul his cabinet, and everyone in Ottawa has some idea how he might do it. Picking a cabinet is an increasingly difficult task. Prime ministers must ensure various regions, languages, identities, genders, loyalties and competencies are represented fairly. You need politicos, communicators and managers, and you need to instil the...
It’s official. The Great Pierre Poilievre Tone Experiment of early 2026 is over. After donning the mantle of the reasonable, Poilievre is back to his natural pugilistic self. And so is his team, with House Leader Andrew Scheer now accusing the (checks notes) National Post of being in the tank for the Liberals for the crime of (checks notes again)...
“In a crisis, fortune favours the bold,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a fireside chat video, posted online earlier this month. The Prime Minister laid out the foundation for his Canada Strong plan, which he promised would be transformative, comprehensive and ambitious. But if fortune indeed favours the bold, as Mr. Carney said, the forces of the universe will...
A pessimist could construe Donald Trump’s warning about American troop reductions in Germany as a less brazen modern equivalent to the non-aggression Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. The U.S. president is involved in a spat with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz over his conduct in the war with Iran and has said the Pentagon is...
Any attempt by Alberta to separate from the rest of Canada must follow the strict rules set out by the Clarity Act, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday, while making the case that he can stop the secessionist push by demonstrating that the federation works. On Monday, the leaders of Alberta’s separatist movement said they had gathered enough signatures to...
REGINA -- The Saskatchewan government is launching a postcard survey to determine next steps on a possible social media ban for children.
QUEBEC -- Quebec Premier Christine Frechette intends to renew the Charter's override clause to protect one of the province's French-language laws from court challenges.
Canadian officials compared the Major Projects Office to the U.S. National Energy Dominance Council in providing ‘support to advance projects efficiently’
The federal government officially broke ground Monday in Ottawa on a national memorial to the sacrifice of Canadians during more than a dozen years of war in Afghanistan. The monument, which has a controversial design history, will be located on LeBreton Flats in the national capital, near the Canadian War Museum. It is intended to recognize the contributions of those...
NDP Leader Marit Stiles predicts a future behind bars for Premier Doug Ford — if she wins the next election. NDP Leader Marit Stiles predicts a future behind bars for Premier Doug Ford — if she wins the next election. “Maybe you won’t get another mandate — because you’ll get prison, Doug!” said Stiles, whose party is trailing the Progressive...
More than a month after winning the federal NDP’s leadership race, Avi Lewis is working without a salary while the party tries to figure out how much to pay him. Donya Ziaee, Mr. Lewis’s communications director, said talks are underway to resolve the matter and acknowledged the state of the party, which suffered its worst result ever in the 202...
Family and friends of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people are set to gather on Parliament Hill today. Participants plan to hold a press conference and a vigil for Red Dress Day. The event will be led by Bridget Tolley, founder of Families of Sisters in Spirit. Speakers will commemorate lost loved ones and comment on Canada's...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is expected to name a new governor general today at a press conference in Ottawa. The governor general is appointed by the Sovereign on the advice of the prime minister and usually holds office for five years. Mary Simon, Canada's first Indigenous governor general, will reach the five-year mark of her tenure in July.
Ryan Van Horne has had season tickets for the Toronto Raptors for 12 years but for the first time, he's considering ending his streak. That's because Ontario legislation that came into effect last month capped the price of resale tickets at face value, plus the cost of some taxes and service fees. The move makes it harder for seat holders...
British Columbia Premier David Eby said he doesn't understand why the federal government continues to push a new oil pipeline from Alberta, while it fails to include B.C.'s softwood lumber industry in its latest round of tariff relief. He said it's unclear to him why Prime Minister Mark Carney said last week that a new pipeline is "more likely than...
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon says the potential pipeline expansion project U.S. President Donald Trump approved last week is a positive sign of “cross-border communication” and co-operation, after more than a year of tension stemming from the trade war. Last week, Trump signed an order authorizing the Bridger Pipeline Expansion, a proposed project that would revive portions of the cancelled Keystone...
Unions representing workers across the country were calling on governments to be flexible Monday after executives in the federal public service started a new work schedule that will see them on-site in the office five days a week. The Treasury Board announced the change to remote work rules in February and said all other employees will have to be in...
Alberta separatists handed in a massive petition Monday to try to trigger a referendum on the province leaving Canada, touting a final tally of nearly 302,000 signatures after months of campaigning. Waving Alberta flags and sporting matching blue hoodies, more than 300 supporters gathered at the Elections Alberta office in Edmonton as a convoy of trucks delivered the paperwork. Mitch...
The prime minister is set to announce on Tuesday who he’s appointing to become Canada’s next governor general, CBC News has learned. Multiple sources said Mark Carney’s selection is expected to be fully bilingual in English and French. Two sources said the appointee is a woman. The current governor general, Mary Simon, is nearing the end of five years in...
Azam Ishmael, who has served as the Liberal Party’s national director for more than nine years, is stepping down. Mr. Ishmael announced his decision in a letter to party staff, but did not say why he is leaving. Mr. Ishmael said he is sad his time in politics is ending but he goes with “a full heart, deep gratitude, and...
Prime Minister Mark Carney says his government will contribute $270 million to help Ukraine secure critical military capabilities in its defence against Russia’s full-scale invasion. Carney made the announcement in Armenia on Monday, where he is meeting with world leaders during the European Political Community summit, a gathering focused on strategic co-operation in politics, security and infrastructure. The money will...
Canada is sending more military aid to Ukraine as it continues to defend itself against Russia. Prime Minister Mark Carney made the announcement at the European Political Community summit in Yerevan, Armenia, on Monday, saying Canada will contribute about $270 million toward critical military capabilities, drawn from NATO’s prioritized list of needs for Ukraine. The funding adds to more than...
Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon says the government's new national AI strategy will consider the technology's impacts on the labour market. It's been six months since the government wrapped up fast-tracked consultations on the strategy, which Solomon initially promised would be tabled by the end of last year. Solomon says the impact of AI has been changing and he is...
The federal government's strategy to protect more than $100 billion worth of key infrastructure from the destructive impacts of climate change has significant gaps, with three key departments well behind where they need to be. That's the verdict of an audit by Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development Jerry V. DeMarco of the federal government's Greening Government Strategy. "As...
Chinese consular officials met with a Vancouver city hall employee last month and urged her to cancel an arts event that highlighted communist party repression, sources told Global News.
Canada’s largest public sector union is calling the federal government’s contract offer to tens of thousands of public servants “insulting,” saying the proposal “amounts to less than one per cent per year.” The Public Service Alliance of Canada says three bargaining units representing more than 120,000 public servants met with the Treasury Board last week as part of contract talks...
The federal government is giving $20 million to Toronto-based Electra Battery Materials for its cobalt sulfate refinery in northeastern Ontario, The Logic has learned. The federal contribution to the $99.4-million project will flow through Ottawa’s $5-billion Strategic Response Fund, which replaced the flagship Strategic Innovation Fund last year.
The federal government is launching a new $1 billion loan program for steel, aluminum and copper businesses impacted by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs. Industry Minister Mélanie Joly and minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario Evan Solomon made the announcement in Vars, Ont. on Monday morning. “The new measures announced today will protect workers and...
Canada’s oil industry is pushing back hard on proposals to impose a higher carbon tax, arguing the policy adds costs at a time when the world needs more secure and affordable sources of energy. Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith agreed to a higher carbon tax for industrial emissions and a carbon storage project as part of...
A group of Alberta separatists gathering signatures to trigger a referendum on pulling the province out of Confederation is set to hand in its petition sheets today. Mitch Sylvestre, the head of Stay Free Alberta, says it plans to deliver the thousands of names to Elections Alberta's head office in Edmonton. More than a month ago, Sylvestre said the group...
Most caucus members are not pressing the issue, recognizing that Canada has limited leverage and little ability to meaningfully influence the U.S. position, say some Liberal MPs. With the high-stakes Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement up for renewal this summer—a deal that impacts hundreds of thousands of Canadian jobs—some Liberal MPs are saying one key reason that Prime Minister Mark Carney has...
Most Albertans skeptical referendum on separation would pass. After months of signature-gathering and with a potential referendum on independence on the horizon, a new poll done for CBC News suggests Albertans' support for separatism remains flat, with few persuaded to change sides. "What was amazing was how very close the numbers this year were with last year, well within the...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is backing the Ontario government’s move to expand Toronto’s Billy Bishop Airport, saying it would be great for the economy and increase competition. He made the comments only a short distance from Billy Bishop on Sunday while making a separate announcement on government debt. “This is great for the economy, for the environment and for convenience,”...
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says the prime minister has "wasted an entire year" deliberating a potential new oil pipeline out of Alberta — criticism that comes after Mark Carney said a new pipeline is "more probable than possible." "He's been prime minister for a year and he still hasn't even made up his mind whether he supports a pipeline," Poilievre...
ATLANTA (AP) -- The Department of Justice is seeking the names of every person who worked in the 2020 election in Georgia's Fulton County, a Democratic stronghold that Donald Trump has long accused of widespread voter fraud he says cost him victory against Joe Biden in the state that year.
U.S. forces on Monday launched an effort to guide commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, where hundreds have been stuck since the Iran war began.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is breathing on his own after being hospitalized with pneumonia and placed on a ventilator, his spokesperson said Monday.
The absence of a visible leader of the Democrats will help, not hurt Democratic Party chances in the midterms.
Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon says the potential pipeline expansion project U.S. President Donald Trump approved last week is a positive sign of “cross-border communication” and co-operation, after more than a year of tension stemming from the trade war. Last week, Trump signed an order authorizing the Bridger Pipeline Expansion, a proposed project that would revive portions of the cancelled Keystone...
Prime Minister Mark Carney says his government will contribute $270 million to help Ukraine secure critical military capabilities in its defence against Russia’s full-scale invasion. Carney made the announcement in Armenia on Monday, where he is meeting with world leaders during the European Political Community summit, a gathering focused on strategic co-operation in politics, security and infrastructure. The money will...
Prime Minister Mark Carney is headed to Armenia on Saturday for a visit his office says is framed around Ukraine's defence and drumming up more trade and investment in Europe. Jean-Francois Ratelle, an international studies professor at the University of Ottawa who specializes in the Caucasus region, said it's disappointing that the visit doesn't seem to be aimed at continuing...
Canada's initial position supporting Washington's war in Iran shifted over the subsequent days as U.S. President Donald Trump's objectives became more clear, Prime Minister Mark Carney told The Canadian Press. "The scale of what the objectives were, or the clarity about what the objectives were, were not there at the start and have arguably evolved over time," Carney said in...
President Donald Trump said on Friday that he will increase the tariffs charged on cars and trucks from the European Union next week to 25%, a move that could jolt the world economy at a fragile moment. Trump said in a social media post that the EU "is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal," though he did...
The first year of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s leadership has had a transformational impact on both Canada’s foreign policy and its standing in the world. The shift has been especially evident in the Indo-Pacific, where Ottawa is more active, more strategic, and more ambitious than it has ever been.
Canada’s long-standing openness helped build one of the world’s most respected immigration systems. However, the intellectual establishment’s push for ever-expanding “inclusivity” has driven that openness beyond what many Canadians consider reasonable.
A collection of SubStack publishing within Canadian public affairs.
If you want to sound wise these days, just blame the crazy state of the world on polarization. If you want to sound really wise, say that fighting polarization needs to be part of the political agenda and be sure to blame social media and Donald Trump (although not necessarily in that order) for the current chaos. Despite it being...
An F-35 crash in Alaska should give shivers to Canada’s military. The pilot survived thankfully, but the $200 million plane was completely destroyed.
By now, most of you reading this column are aware of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s announcement earlier this week that the government is launching a sovereign wealth fund (entitled the Canada Strong Fund). There is, in theory, nothing wrong with such an idea. Indeed, the logic behind such a fund is quite sound.
Watching some US television today after yesterday's European summit has left some commentators asking about a major Canadian role in a post America world. Plus a weekend article in the Toronto Star was, and still is, a real talker. It asked whether Mark Carney was drifting away from some of the Liberals who had helped him win the leadership and...
Canada has spent the last year shoring up defence spending. Now a new multilateral financial institution, the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank, is being established with the promise of offering stable financing to member countries. After months of negotiations, Canada was selected to be the bank’s host country last week.
He was “Captain Canada” last year and at one point, the most popular conservative in Canada. But now Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s taken a hit in the polls after a series of decisions that include the purchase and almost immediate sale of a $28.9-million private jet that his critics are calling the “gravy plane”. Two recent polls have seen the...
